Here at Play3r we love it when some new hardware comes out for us to get our hands on, and this week has been no different with the release of the GTX9XX series of GPU’s from Nvidia. Based on Nvidia’s Maxwell architecture and offering performance equal to and above previous generations whilst reducing power draw, it is certainly an interesting release, but what do we think about it? Well I took some time to go round and ask the team what their thoughts were on Nvidia’s new addition to the market.
Gav: “My feelings on Maxwell are I’m very impressed with the direction they have gone in with regards to cutting power consumption. Not only does this give this the ability to increase overclocking potential but cuts TDP which should give better efficiency all-around. Oh, and the 970 price is astonishing.”
Dave: “Maxwell is a neat addition to the Nvidia GeForce family, impressing with their main focus on lowering power consumption and cutting the TDP of the new flagship 900 series, making them a lot less power hungry and efficient as the previous models. It’s good to see Nvidia haven’t focused, yet, on releasing a 780/780Ti beater but have somewhat copied Intel’s Tick-Tock model of taking a good card and making it better as the performance between the two is somewhat negligible. Perhaps they are waiting to see what AMD bring to the table with their next line of releases before showing their poker hand. It’s an exciting time.”
Ben: “With the recent release of the new Maxwell based Nvidia cards we are starting to see a new trend in PC hardware and that is better performance and less power usage. This is an all around win for consumers and should allow for better temperatures and higher overclocks. The price on the 970’s is astounding and it will be interesting to see how AMD answer to Maxwell.”
Charlie: “Maxwell is a great offering from Nvidia, it may not have been the quantum performance leap that some desired but it represents an unprecedented advance in performance-per-watt that gives us a very interesting glimpse of the future of enthusiast hardware. In addition to the efficiency Maxwell has also arrived at a fantastic price point, especially considering that it has little competition from the red camp when it comes to high performance with low power consumption. Â I for one cannot wait to see what AMD answer with, and what Nvidia are hiding for a rainy day!”
Personally I’m just curious as to what they’ve done to get the power efficiency so damn high! That combined with the (by Nvidia’s standards) very competitive pricing means the 970 is the best card about right now in my opinion. As someone who owns a 660 though, I’m more curious to see what the GTX960 has to offer, that efficiency combined with a very big overclocking potential could make the 960 an incredibly good buy.
So there you have it folks! Safe to say that here at Play3r we’ve been really impressed, particularly by the incredibly low TDP and power draw, as well as the price point it’s aimed at. With rumours of a 390 on the way from AMD it’s going to be interesting to see how they respond to Nvidia’s hand, one thing’s for sure though, this is a definite win for the consumer. Gav should have a review of the MSI 970 in the next few weeks so stay tuned for that, although I heard a rumour that an unboxing of it would be appearing a lot sooner, so make sure to keep an eye on the Play3r YouTube channel, and in the meantime don’t forget to check out the whole host of other content we have over there!
